


See You In Shell

by mrs_d



Series: Snailed It! [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Professors, Bad Jokes, Bad Puns, Jokes, M/M, Puns & Word Play, Snail Jokes, Snails, people keep tagging me in snail-related posts so I wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9705701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Hey Sam, what’d the snail say as he was slipping down the wall?“How slime flies!”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who tag me in snail-related items on Tumblr.

“Sam? Sam, are you awake?”

Sam grunted, cracked open his eyes. The bedside lamp was blinding, so he closed them again.

“Sorry,” Steve hissed. Sam felt him sit on the edge of the bed, heard the mattress creak a little as he leaned in to touch his — cold! — hand to the side of Sam’s face to block the light. “I let you sleep as late as I could.”

“So, dawn?” Sam mumbled, but then he remembered what day it was and forced himself to sit up. “When are you leaving?”

“Soon,” Steve replied, like it was another apology. “Cab should be here in ten.”

“I could’ve driven you to the station,” Sam offered, even though he’d been saying that for three days, and Steve had turned him down every time.

“It’s okay,” Steve answered, just like Sam knew he would. “I know you’re not much of a morning person.”

That was a lie; Sam wasn’t _anything_ of a morning person. He fought with the registrar’s office every year to make sure none of his classes were scheduled before noon. Meanwhile, Steve loved having 8:30 lectures twice a week. Sam used to wonder how his students felt about it, but then he met a few and decided that arts students were just wired differently.

“Sorry,” he said nevertheless.

He leaned in, brushed a kiss across Steve’s lips. Steve sighed, a sweet, contented sound, and shifted closer until Sam was holding him, his slightly bony shoulder tucked under Sam’s chin. They stayed that way in silence for a moment, Sam’s eyes drifting closed again with the familiar feel of Steve in his arms and the knowledge that he was going to be without this for the next few days.

Then Steve squirmed — he wasn’t very good at holding still — jolting Sam back to alertness. He pulled back, and Steve reached up to fiddle with his glasses and hair, which was still damp with gel.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t mess up your do,” Sam reassured him as he put his feet on the floor and pushed himself into a standing position.

“Better not have,” Steve muttered like it was a threat.

Sam chuckled and stretched. “Need a hand with your luggage?” he asked, fighting off a yawn.

Steve shook his head and led the way down the hall to the foyer, where a duffel bag and two portfolio cases were propped up beside the door. Sam leaned against the wall and watched Steve pull on his bright blue Cons. He smirked a little at the way Steve adjusted — and then re-adjusted — the edges of his faded jeans over the tops, so the star was visible; it wasn’t what Sam would wear to the first day of a conference, but again, arts people were wired differently.

“I got it, I got it,” Steve said, waving Sam off when he tried to pick up one of the portfolios. “You’ve done enough, paying for the trip.”

“Part of the trip,” Sam corrected him. “And only because your department is ridiculously cheap when it comes to part-timers and professional development. Your paper got accepted, and when you’re gunning for tenure, you’d think the least they could do would—”

“Babe, if we get into this, I’m gonna miss the train,” Steve interrupted with a grin. “Just admit you like being my sugar daddy.”

“Ugh,” Sam groaned, making a face. “Please don’t ever say that again. Especially not in front of the kids,” he added, gesturing towards Cap and Falcon’s tank in the living room.

Steve laughed, grabbed his leather jacket off the hook and draped it over his arm. He stepped forward, right into Sam’s space, and tilted his head up. Sam obliged him, kissing that cheesy grin off Steve’s lips and bringing his hands around Steve’s waist. His fingers found warm, soft skin under the back of Steve’s tight Ramones t-shirt, and Steve made a small noise of protest before breaking the kiss and pulling away.

“I’m definitely gonna miss the train if we get into _that_ ,” he murmured, a little breathless.

Right on cue, there was the sound of a car pulling into the drive. Sam grabbed Steve’s duffel before he could argue, and carried it outside, his bare toes slipping a little on the dewy grass.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you on Saturday,” Steve said, after they’d loaded his bags into the back seat.

“You bet,” Sam agreed. He pecked Steve on the lips and stepped back, holding the door open, so Steve could climb in. “Wouldn’t dream of missing your birthday in the Big Apple.”

“Ugh, such a tourist,” Steve groaned, rolling his eyes. He pulled the door closed and rolled down the window before fastening his seat belt. “But I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Sam laughed. “And I know you’ll rock your presentation tomorrow, so don’t be nervous.”

Steve made the awkward face he always made whenever someone complimented him, but he nodded, too. “Thanks,” he said. Then he winked. “Sugar daddy.”

“You know I can change the locks while you’re away, you little punk,” Sam reminded him.

Steve stuck out his tongue as he rolled up the window, while the cab driver seemed to be doing his best impersonation of a brick wall. Sam laughed and waved until the cab disappeared around the corner.

He stayed in the yard a few minutes longer, realizing as he did that it’d been a while since he’d been outside this early in the morning. The air was warm — it was the last day of June, after all — but there was a damp weight to it, too, a cool promise of the heat and humidity that was sure to come. Birds were making a racket in the trees, and the sunrise was turning the houses across the street a strange pink-orange color.

It was nice, Sam decided. Just not as nice as his bed.

* * *

He got up again a few hours later and headed to campus, where he barricaded himself in his office with a big mug of tea, ready to finish the article he’d been procrastinating on all week. He was there right until sundown, and he caught himself daydreaming on the drive home about what he’d make for dinner for him and Steve, before he remembered that Steve wasn’t home. The thought brought him up short, made him feel a little lonely as he unlocked the door and sat down in the empty living room.  

Funny how they’d only been living together six months, and Sam already found the place just wasn’t the same without him.

He threw a sandwich together and ate it with a handful of chips in front of the TV. He left the volume low and the captions on, even though Steve wasn’t there, but Sam found himself watching Cap and Falcon instead. They were meandering up and down the cuttlefish bone in their tank, circling each other like awkward roommates.

“Come on, guys,” Sam told them. “Me and Steve got through that phase in about ten minutes.”

He watched them a little longer, but they didn’t change their pace. Snails would be snails, after all, and snails were slow.

Sam levered himself off the couch and went into the kitchen to rinse his dishes. While he did, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Sam dried his hands and went back into the living room, eager to read about Steve’s first day in New York.

But all the message said was, _FREE WINE!_

Sam laughed out loud. He’d been to enough conferences that he practically had the basic schedule memorized; the first night was always a meet and greet, usually in the hotel bar. But this was Steve’s first conference since before he finished his dissertation — the humanities department wasn’t exactly flush, and neither was Steve — so obviously, Steve had forgotten that this was how it went down.

Steve’s texts got a little sloppier as the night wore on — the guy was such a lightweight — and finally, around 11, they ended a little abruptly with Steve’s favorite (and most annoying) pun: _Snail you later!_ Sam rolled his eyes, but he said goodnight and traded his phone for the book on the coffee table — a mystery novel, Sam’s favorite summer reading.

Half an hour later, his phone buzzed again, and Sam chuckled as he grabbed it, wondering if he was about to get a series of messy sexts. But the message wasn’t from Steve. It came from an unknown number, and it was anything but sexy.

_Hey Sam, what’d the snail say as he was slipping down the wall?_

Sam frowned. He started typing out a confused reply, but another text popped up before he could send it.

_“How slime flies!”_

Sam groaned. ”You have got to be kidding me.”

He knew who this was — he pulled up his contact list and sent a reply to Riley’s other number.

_Nice joke — you get a new phone?_

He only realized after he’d hit send that, if Riley had gotten a new number, texting the old one was kind of pointless, but Riley answered him in less than a minute.

_No new phone, bud, why? And what joke?_

_You didn’t send me the ‘slime flies’ snail joke a minute ago?_ Sam asked, just to be sure.

 _No. No bullshit,_ Riley said, and Sam believed him; that’d been their code since high school, long before Ri enlisted and almost took Sam with him to Afghanistan — a scholarship changed Sam’s mind about that at the last minute.

 _Sounds like a good joke, though_ , Riley added, ruining all of Sam’s warm feelings for him.

_Trust me, it wasn’t. That was why I figured it was you._

_Nah,_ Riley sent, and could practically hear his voice — they had to Skype sometime, it’d been way too long. _Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer._

Sam snorted. _If I do, they’ll have to go through Steve._

 _Ha,_ said Riley. _Yeah, I don’t envy them. I’m 6’2” and I wouldn’t fight Steve Rogers. Not for you, anyway._

Sam laughed. _Good call,_ he typed. _He’s a hair puller._

 _Dude,_ said Riley, after a pause. _If I wanted details of your sex life, I’d ask. The way you two SNAIL each other is none of my business._

Sam just shook his head. _I kinda hate you._

They chatted a while longer, until Sam started yawning and found he couldn’t stop. They said goodnight, and Sam went to bed, deciding to leave the joke text a mystery for now.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Sam woke up the next morning, there was another message waiting for him. 

 _Interrupted an important snail meeting,_ the mysterious person had written, and there was a picture attached — a group of snails on a patio table, arranged in a perfect circle.

There was nothing else. The message had come in at 7, and, despite the nonsensical content, Sam honestly wondered if it was Steve, if he was so bored at the conference that he’d picked up a burner phone just to mess with him. Seemed a little out of character, though, Sam conceded, especially given Steve’s presentation this afternoon.

 _Knock em dead, baby,_ he texted Steve’s number, just in case he was having another attack of nerves.

His phone buzzed about fifteen minutes later, when Sam was about to get in the shower, but it wasn’t Steve. Instead, the mystery texter had sent Sam a link to a webpage full of medieval art featuring knights and snails with a humorous discussion as to whether or not humanity had fought a plague of giant snails in the Middle Ages.

 _Don’t see any knights anymore,_ they said. _Guess you picked the winning team, Sam._

Okay, he had to admit that that one was at least a little funny. Better than _slime flies_ , anyway. But still....

 _Who is this?_ he sent back.

 _A man sitting in a movie theater looks over to see a snail in the seat beside him,_ the mystery texter responded. _“Are you a snail?” the man asks. “Yes, I am,” says the snail._

 _???_ said Sam.

_“What are you doing at the movies?” asks the man. The snail pauses, looking thoughtful._

_OK seriously who is this,_ Sam typed furiously.

_“Well,” the snail says at last. “I really enjoyed the book.”_

“Seriously,” Sam said out loud.

He didn’t have the energy to inflect the word like a question, couldn’t respond to the text. He just stood there in his bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, and stared down at the screen.

“Seriously,” he said again after a long, surreal moment. “What is my life?”

* * *

He never got an answer. The mysterious texter left him alone for the rest of the day — lending credence to the idea that it really was Steve, pulling some kind of elaborate prank on him — and Sam went to campus to get some more work done, meeting with a few grad students in the lab and checking in on their summer projects.

In the elevator, he bumped into Misty — literally. She was carrying a huge box marked _FRAGILE_ , and Sam couldn’t see her face. He only knew it was her because nobody else had curls that perfect.

“Let me help you with that,” Sam offered, and between the two of them, they got the box safely stashed in one corner. Sam decided to ride up with her, in case she needed a hand getting out, too.

“Thanks,” Misty replied as the car started to rise. She wiped her palms against her slacks. “What are you doing here so late, Sam?”

“Advising,” Sam told her, and she nodded without a word. “How’s Claire?”

“Good,” said Misty. A too-dreamy smile started to drift across her face, but she caught it, shook herself out of it. “And Steve?”

“Fine,” Sam replied. “Away at a conference and still being a pain in my ass.”

Misty laughed. “That’s talent,” she commented. “What’s he doing?”

They’d arrived on Misty’s floor. While they lugged Misty’s new piece of equipment down the hall to her lab, Sam told her about the unknown phone number, the cheesy jokes related to snails. Much to his chagrin, she laughed hardest at _slime flies_.

“You have no taste,” Sam told her.

“Oh, come on,” Misty laughed. “It’s funny!”

Sam shook his head with exaggerated disappointment. “No taste,” he repeated. 

“Well, I’d like to see you come up with one better,” Misty challenged him. She pulled on her bright red lab coat — she loved to stick out — and crossed her arms. The prosthetic glinted in the fluorescent lighting. “Seriously, you should be proud of your boyfriend’s sense of humor. He’s punny.”

Sam gave her the deadest of deadpan looks. Misty grinned, and he sighed. “Never mind. Remind me to get some normal friends.”

“Why have normal when you can have me?” Misty countered.

Sam laughed, pulled her into a quick hug and pecked her cheek. “You’re right,” he said. “As usual. Give Claire my love, tell her I still dream about those syringe sugar cookies she made for Halloween.”

“I’ll pass it along,” Misty said fondly. “Thanks for your help, Sam, see you later.”

Sam smiled all the way down to his car. He had an idea.

* * *

 _Snail jokes,_ Sam typed into Google one-handedly as he was walking up the drive. The number of results surprised him, but their terribleness was to be expected.

“Listen to this one: How do you get your shells so shiny?” he asked Cap and Falcon when he got inside. “Snail polish!”

Cap and Falcon didn’t react. Sam assumed they were stunned into silence.

He took them out and cleaned their tank, checking carefully for eggs the way he did every few days, but there was still nothing. For two lonely snails, they sure weren’t big into copulating, Sam thought. Maybe they just needed more time.

 _How do snails settle their disputes?_ he texted the unknown number once his hands were clean and dry again.

 _They slug it out!_ the texter replied less than a minute later. _What’d the snail wear to the club on Saturday night?_

 _What?_ said Sam, despite himself.

_Her escargogo boots!_

“Oh my God,” Sam groaned, bringing one hand up to his forehead. _That’s terrible, Steve._

Steve didn’t answer for almost fifteen minutes. Either he was busy — maybe having dinner, given the time — or he was contemplating his next move, now that he’d been found out. Sam wondered if he was looking up more puns, but then his phone buzzed again.

 _Not Steve,_ the message read. _Sorry. I didn’t realize you’d think that._

Sam frowned down at the screen, at the only message he’d received from this number that wasn’t a joke. It piqued his curiosity, but it also made his stomach contract with worry.

 _Then who...?_ he asked.

There was no reply. Sam drummed his fingers against the sofa, paced the living room, made himself some food, and did the dishes after eating, and his phone didn’t buzz once.

 _How’d your presentation go?_ he sent to Steve finally.

 _Fantastic,_ Steve replied right away. _Can’t talk rn, meeting w/ ppl. Text later k?_

 _K_ , Sam answered.

He suddenly felt very alone, the house seeming much too empty and quiet. He watched Falcon make their way up one wall of the tank, while Cap slithered along the other.

“Trouble in paradise?” he asked them.

His phone buzzed on the coffee table. _Bucky_ , the message from the unknown number read, and it took Sam a good few seconds to figure out why that weird name sounded familiar.

 _Steve’s friend_ , he replied finally. He’d heard of the guy, he fought in the Middle East while Steve was finishing a post-doc in New York. _Good to meet you. Sort of._

 _Steve never told me you were such a sweet-talker,_ Bucky replied, and Sam laughed.

_Dude, what did you expect? You flooded my phone with cheesy snail jokes for over a day._

_Made you laugh, didn’t I?_ Bucky countered.

 _Remind me to introduce you to my buddy Riley,_ Sam replied, his words appearing on the screen at the same time as an unrelated message from Bucky.

 _Besides, the whole thing was Steve’s idea. Or rather, drunk Steve, I should say_. 

 _Well, that proves my hypothesis,_ said Sam. Then he grinned. _I didn’t think that was an unfounded conchlusion._

There was a pause before Bucky asked, _Did you just...?_

 _I just_ , Sam answered. _Ball’s in your court._

_All right, then hang on to your shell phone, because slima bout to kick your conch..._


	3. Chapter 3

“Sam!” Steve cried, waving.

Sam caught sight of him, waved back. He hitched his backpack up on his right shoulder and made his way across the crowded platform until he could wrap his left arm around Steve and hold him tight.

“I missed you,” he murmured, ducking in to plant a quick kiss behind Steve’s ear, right where he knew it’d make him shiver.

Steve’s cheeks were fiery red when Sam pulled back, but he managed to keep his composure as he turned to the man standing on his right. Sam hadn’t even noticed him.

“Sam, this is Bucky. Bucky, Sam,” said Steve.

Bucky was not what Sam was expecting — he was still as a statue, his eyes darting from Sam and Steve back to the crowds — especially not given the conversations they’d been having the last two days. Still, he was Steve’s best friend.

“How’s it going, man?” Sam asked, extending his left hand.

Bucky shook it awkwardly with his right hand, and it took Sam a second to realize why — Bucky was missing his left arm, Steve had told him that.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He cringed internally as he felt his face heat.

Bucky shrugged, gave him a ghost of a smile. “Just don’t thank me for my service, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam agreed. He turned to Steve, who’d been watching their exchange with an anxious expression. “You ready to get out of here?”

“Yes, please,” Steve replied.

He led Sam out of the station. Bucky stayed close on Sam’s heels, and when they all reached the fresh, relatively uncrowded air of the sidewalk, some of the tension went out of his body.

“You still good if we stay with Buck out in Brooklyn?” asked Steve.

Sam was surprised; they’d made these arrangements over a week ago, and nothing had changed. He wondered if this was some kind of test, the _Are you freaked out by my best friend’s injury?_ test. Well, if it was, Sam would show him.

“Yeah,” he said, turning to Bucky. “If you don’t mind us crashing on your conch— I mean, couch.”

A grin flickered across Bucky’s face, and for the first time Sam could see the person who’d been antagonizing him for days.

“No snailing each other in my living room,” he said firmly, and he turned on his heel. Sam thought he was going to walk away, but he just stood there with his back to them.

He opened his mouth, about to ask, when suddenly his arms were full of artist, and Steve was kissing him with a lot more enthusiasm than his tiny peck in the train station. Sam kissed him back, barely able to keep up, and for a second, everything from the hot cement under his feet to the cloudy sky above him was perfect.  

“You done?” Bucky called.

“Yep,” said Steve, sliding away to take Sam’s left hand as they headed for the subway.

“Good,” Bucky replied. “So, Steve tells me you’re into snails, Sam?” he asked innocently.

Sam laughed out loud. “Escar-go away, Bucky.”

Bucky grinned over his shoulder, bright and uncomplicated for the first time since Sam had met him. 

Steve shook his head ruefully. “What have I done?”


End file.
